Blackhawks' Bryan Bickell has 'all the elements'

Robyn Regehr #44 of the Los Angeles Kings and Bryan Bickell #29 of the Chicago Blackhawks vie for position in front of goaltender Jonathan Quick #32 of the Los Angeles Kings in the second period of Game One of the Western Conference Final during the 2013 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at United Center on June 1, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois.

Photograph by: Jamie Squire
, Getty Images

When did Joel Quenneville first realize that Bryan Bickell could be this good?

“Five years ago when he was first called up,” the Chicago Blackhawks head coach said Sunday morning. “We played him with Toews and Kaner that year. There's ability there. You like his size, his speed. He can shoot and be physical.

“He's got all the elements that you look for in a power forward. Putting it all together has been a process.”

Well, that’s five years sooner than most of the hockey world.

To those less familiar with the Blackhawks’ process, Bickell might as well have emerged from the womb, fully grown, sometime during the last two weeks, when his 6-foot-4, 233-pound frame began raising welts on the Detroit Red Wings’ puck handlers in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, although that may have been the least surprising aspect of his game.

The fun part was that he played his way into a top-six role on one of hockey’s most talented scoring squads, doing what hardly anyone else -- on his team, or the Red Wings -- could do in a very hotly-contested, well-coached, positionally-demanding series: make an offensive impact.

Now, after another goal in Game 2, Bickell not only is scoring, but setting them up, showing not merely a nice sense of timing, but a head for the game, decent hands and a bellicose nature that ought to make him one of the centrepieces of the unrestricted free agent market this summer.

Vancouver, Edmonton Montreal ... among Canadian teams alone, the lineup for a big power forward who can play alongside skilled players should be long, if he doesn’t re-sign in Chicago.

The 27-year-old from Bowmanville, Ont., who assisted on Marian Hossa’s winner in the Hawks’ 2-1, Game 1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings and scored the third Chicago goal Sunday evening, has more post-season goals (6) than anyone on his team except playoff leader Patrick Sharp, as many as one of his current linemates, Hossa, and more points (8) than his centre, captain Jonathan Toews.

“Yeah, we played games together against Detroit, too,” said Toews. “He's a big body and he knows where to go. He creates space. Made a nice play on Hossa's goal. We kind of have the physical element with him running around and hitting guys.

“He thinks the game, he makes smart plays, he keeps things simple when he has to. He's got the confidence as a player to make some moves, make some nice passes. But more and more he's understanding, especially in these playoffs, there's some situations where less is more.

“And his work ethic is there every single night. You're seeing with the ability he has, the physical presence that he has, a lot of ways that he's noticeable as a player out there.”

He stood out in the previous series partly because of the Red Wings’ lack of a classic power forward of his stature. As the series went on, his punishment of the Wings took its toll.

Against the Kings, he was conspicuous in Game 1 because the Kings’ own stable of big bodies -- Dwight King and Dustin Penner, notably, but also No. 1 centre Anze Kopitar -- had no impact on the game, and Jordan Nolan didn’t dress.

Ironically, asked whether he had patterned his game after anyone during his development years, Bickell said: “Yeah, I think you look at Penner. He's a similar player to me. He's a bigger guy that has good puck possession, got a great shot. I think looking at when he was in Edmonton, I kind of patterned myself a similar style. But, you know, I'm not Penner. It's my own game. I just need to bring it every night.”

He brings it a lot more often than the Kings’ enigmatic big man, and with more ferocity.

“It takes a toll on your body,” Bickell acknowledged, of the banging role. “I think you need to pick your spots. You don't just run around hitting everything in sight. If the hit's there, the hit's there. But to bring my level or any big guy's level up, the body is a big part. Especially at this time of the season, wear on the D, get a hit on any forward, it slows them down.”

Bickell was not without credentials when the Blackhawks drafted him in the second round in 2004 from the Ottawa 67s, the same round in which they had earlier picked Dave Bolland. (Then again, they also chose defenceman Cam Barker third overall behind Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin that year, so nobody’s perfect.) Bickell scored 32 goals and went to the Memorial Cup with Brian Kilrea’s team in 2005, and even scored 17 with the Hawks in 2010-11, the first season he made it to the big team for keeps after spending most of his first four years as a pro in the minors.

He was mostly an observer in the Hawks’s 2010 Cup run, dressing for only four games, and none in the final, so he doesn’t have his name on the Cup. Yet.

He is loving being a bigger cog in the wheel this time.

“To experience what they went through in 2010 was unbelievable, just to be there, to see what it takes to win the ultimate goal,” he said.

And what did he learn? What was it he needed to absorb?

“You know, it kind of feels like we have it now,” he said. “Last series, to be down 3-1, to come back the way we did, shows character. Just the will, what it takes to finish series off, games, late opportunities in periods. It's important.

“I think the confidence level, it goes a long way. Looks like the 2010 team.”

Robyn Regehr #44 of the Los Angeles Kings and Bryan Bickell #29 of the Chicago Blackhawks vie for position in front of goaltender Jonathan Quick #32 of the Los Angeles Kings in the second period of Game One of the Western Conference Final during the 2013 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at United Center on June 1, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois.

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